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Former governor dies, Gardner, a two-times Democratic governor who later in life spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the nation to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill, has died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 76. Gardner died Friday at his Tacoma home, said family spokesman Ron Dotzauer. The millionaire heir to the Weyerhaeuser timber fortune served as the state's 19th governor from 1985 to 1993 following terms as Pierce County executive, state senator and business school dean. Since then, he had worked as a U.S. trade ambassador in Geneva, in youth sports and for a variety of philanthropic works. But his biggest political effort in later years was his successful "Death with Dignity" campaign in 2008 that led to the passage of the controversial law that mirrored one in place in Oregon since 1997. Washington state had rejected a similar assisted-suicide initiative in 1991. But after a contentious campaign,

Former governor dies, Booth Gardner was a two-term governor whose biggest political effort came long after he left the Washington state Capitol. Gardner, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease two years after he ended his final term as the state's 19th governor, spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the country to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill. In this Oct. 25, 2006 file photo, Booth Gardner sits in Wright Park, near his home in Tacoma. Gardner, a two-term Democratic governor who later in life spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the country to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill, has died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 76. Gardner died Friday, March 15, 2013 at his Tacoma home, family spokesman Ron Dotzauer said Saturday. He was the state's 19th governor. While Gardner knew he wouldn't qualify to use the law – Parkinson's disease it